#scientific mindset

1. There is no alternative to the project of enlightenment, to a sound scientific approach. If anything has become clear over the last year, then it is surely this. The more we know about the beginning of life, the universe, how life on earth functions, indeed how human life and our body and mind work, the more it transpires that we can place no confidence whatsoever in tradition, religions, culture, ‘everyday knowledge’, social conventions, social media and all the other forms of un-reflected, un-tested, not-thought-through forms of human (self-) oppression we have invented. The project of human (self-) liberation within the means of nature is thus far from accomplished.

2. Out of point 1 flow a number of insights and issues which are clearly understood, but not acted upon since we - taken as one humanity - are still overwhelmingly stuck in medieval mindsets when it comes to values and convictions we hold and the acts we commit when living our lives.

All forms of religion, ideology, magic world-views (such as believing in what we have personally experienced as a reliable guide to truth; or believing in what authorities of any kind - leaders, gurus, teachers,.... - tell us) are the most damaging obstacles to an understanding of who we are, how life works, how power and societies are constructed and kept functioning. Only a scientific approach allows us the necessary distancing from our own ideological bubble, double-checking through other means and instruments, triangulating what initially can only be a hypothesis. Yet the fact that most people on earth still cling to belief systems of one form or another is a clear sign of how far we still have to go. There is literally no hope for humankind until we all accept to base our lives and decisions on facts and established, corroborated scientific insights rather than beliefs. This also goes for so-called values, because most ‘values’ which guide our lives are nothing more than uncritically accepted cultural assumptions cemented into socially prescribed and transmitted norms - very often a far cry from anything we could know from a careful study of the issues at stake.

Since the willingness of humankind to ‘think outside the box’, to ‘un-learn’ deeply-held and widely accepted ‘truths’ - which have long been proven to be false - is very limited, one of the most important tools we have is to further these capacities and competences for self-critical, systemic, complex, radical (starting at the root) thinking and understanding, without which coherent, consistent and sustainable action is impossible. Some of the most important insights which will guides us in these learning endeavours are:

In times when it seems that the folly of irrational, populist, greedy and destructive power politics returns to the world stage, most prominently with Trump and Putin, we are well advised not to be too sure of our own convictions and ideas. They might, more than we might like, be part of the problem, rather than the solution.

I have written about this in a little more depth elsewhere: 'Freedom, Justice and Sustainability: Do We Really Know What We Are Doing?', in: Eco-Justice. Essays on Theory and Practice in 2016, ed. by David Diethelm (Eugene, OR: Eco-Justice Press, 2016), pp. 23-42. ISBN 978-1-945432-02-6; http://ecojusticepress.com/eco-justice-essays-on-theory-and-practice-2016.html). But let me just draw together the most important thoughts here:

I have just finished reading this wonderful, insightful book and I would like to share with you what seems to me to be most important (and not just because one of his chapters uses the affirmative of the title question of my last book: Do We Know What We Are Doing?):

I was struck yet again at the beauty and liberating force of scientific understanding, as opposed to believing in metaphysical Überbau: you don't believe what appears to be the case, you go, check, triangulate and peak behind the obvious and find ways to measure things you thought immeasurable. And, suddenly, it is there and makes sense: no need for absurd and difficult theories (such as dualism between brain and mind, physical and mental world).

Of course we are physical beings and everything we do, think, feel etc. is mediated and created by the brain, but not on its own but in interdependent, systemic interaction with the outside world, other brains and experience. We don't like this fact very much that we are far from being autonomous, independent selfs, “I's”, apart from the world. So the brain creates this illusion of us as independent agents, but we can show today that this is a creation of the brain on the basis of an unending interchange with the world via our senses, via our communication with others. We are always modelled and modified by this interaction, even if we believe to be independent. What we are and who we are, we are through our learning from and interaction with the world and others, not through some inner entity which doesn't exist.

Yet Frith shows convincingly that these illusions created by the brain in no way mean that there is no outside world and no way of knowing. On the contrary, these abstracted models of the world our brains create are necessary for us to live and survive, since they allow as to do what every good scientist does all the time: using the model of the world we have we interpret our sensory input, what others say and constantly check whether the models predict what we see and hear and feel correctly, or if we need to adjust our models, refine them, make them better.

So, understanding our brains and how they create our minds better might help us not just to fight back our illusion of the autonomous self in order to understand the interdependence of being alive with others, but it might also give us a good model of how we should try to approach understanding and knowledge: not that we believe in any fixed system of explanations or in any master or in any holy book, but that we continually recheck, refine, and debunk: what seems difficult to understand, what seems way beyond rational explanation – this is what history and progress of scientific understanding teaches us – sooner or later turns out to be explicable. It was not some more-than-human entity with which explanation resides. It was simply and humbly that we had not be careful or ingenious enough to find the right explanation.

So, as I said many times before: scientific understanding is the only game in town. Fearlesss enlightenment rather than fearful belief. Or, to quote Frith and Horace:

"A real scientist wants to make her own, independent check on the measurements reported by someone else: "Nullius in verba" is the motto of the Royal Society of London: "Don't believe what people tell you, however authoritative they may be."

Or: Nullius addictus iurarae in verba magistri: "I am not bound to swear allegiance to the word of any master." Horace, Epistulae. (Frith, 2007, 6)

Worldviews

"The fundamental difference between the attitudes of modern and ancient man as regards the surrounding world is this: for modern, scientific man the phenomenal world is primarily an 'It'; for ancient--and also for primitive --man it is a 'Thou'." ~ Henri Frankfort

Modern scientific mindset -- the world is populated with both living and non-living things.

Living things: are animate and have a 'personality'

Non-living things: are inert, inanimate and devoid of personality

Animistic/Ancient mindset --  the world is populated only with living things

Everything in their world was populated with spirits, god, and forces with personalities, desires and intentions of their own, including animals, rocks, tress, rivers, the moon, stars and the sun. 

Impact on Morality 

When we trip over a rock, we curse ourselves for not looking were we were going and move on with our day. 

When an ancient or a primitive individual, tripped over a rock, on the other hand, he felt that the rock was inhabited with evil spirits and forces which were out to punish and sabotage him. Every experience of an ancient individual was felt as a confrontation with another personality, another being like himself. 

The Presocratics: The human mind as the source of knowledge rather than divine intervention.

The Presocratics instigated a transformation in the way human beings experience the world. Instead of explaining events and phenomena as caused by god, spirits and personal forces with agendas of their own, the Presocratics explained events in the world as the product of impersonal and natural forces.  [....This] transformed the way individuals experience the world.

Prior to the Presocratics, individuals attempted to explain the world by telling stories. These stories often took the form of poems or myths.  These stories were not thought to be generated by the human mind alone, but instead poets and mythmakers were thought of as requiring divine intervention in order to obtain the knowledge they shared with their fellow humans. [....] Hesiod wrote that the goddesses of inspiration, the Muses, supplied him with knowledge of the creation of the universe. [....] Ancient poets and mythmakers felt themselves to  be doing nothing but channelling the knowledge given to them by the gods.

The Presocratics transformed this view of knowledge. Thales [....] made the bold leap and concluded that the human mind, without divine assistance, is capable of understanding the universe. [...] This revolutionary change of attitude cannot be overstated. For what this meant was the world was beginning to be seen as orderly rather than largely incomprehensible place governed by the whims of gods and spirits. [...]

"[The faith of scientific thought] that the visable world conceals a rational and intelligibel order, that the causes of the natural world are to be sought within its boundaries and that autonomous human rason is our soul and sufficient instrument for the search" ~ W. K. C Guthrie